Motor vehicles have been in common usage for nearly a century. Shortly after the first, rather small, personal automobiles were rolling off assembly lines, larger trucks and related vehicles began to be produced in large numbers as well. Towable trailers equipped with living quarters soon followed, and it wasn't long before such trailers were placed on a truck chassis and the recreational vehicle (“RV”) or motorhome was born. Today, such vehicles can be exceedingly large, requiring huge, heavy tires (in comparison to a standard automobile tire). Such tires, especially when affixed to a wheel and ready to be installed on the motorhome in place of a flat tire (such wheel and tire assemblies are ubiquitously referred to as spare tires), can weigh in excess of one hundred pounds and are quite unwieldy and difficult to handle. Perhaps for these reasons, many motorhomes and other large RVs often do not carry a spare tire. Thus, if the driver of such a vehicle is unfortunate enough to experience a flat tire, his or her only option is to call for assistance. Because recreational vehicles are often used to recreate in far-flung locations, assistance can be a long distance away, difficult to procure, and often very expensive, if available at all.
Most small motor vehicles (such as cars and light trucks) carry a spare tire either in the trunk, under the chassis, or otherwise attached to the automobile so that, in the case of a flat tire, the operator can remove the flat, install the spare tire, and drive the vehicle to a repair station for further assistance. Because many motorhome owners are familiar with this state of affairs when operating their smaller automobiles, they lament the fact that such a spare tire assembly is too big and heavy to be commonly installed in recreational vehicles and are often completely unprepared to deal with a flat tire if such occurs while they are operating their RV.
Since many manufacturers of RVs do not include a spare tire or even a mounting location for an owner to carry an after-market spare tire with them, there is currently a need for an RV spare tire carrier. However, as noted above, spare tires for RVs are exceedingly heavy and unwieldy, so spare tire carriers, as currently known in the art, are not built heavy enough to handle such spares and can not just be welded onto an RV because a single person could be crushed trying to remove a spare tire therefrom. Instead, what is needed is a heavy duty leveraged spare tire carrier than can be easily installed onto almost all RVs, is strong enough to carry the weight and bulk of an RV spare tire, and yet is configured in such a way as to allow a single person to load and unload the spare tire from the carrier without risking life and limb in the process.
Additionally, owners of other large trucks/vehicles, off-road vehicles, and others often wish to carry a spare tire (or a second spare tire) as well and so a device that can also meet the needs of these people can have additionally utility.